Working with The Fall

[Sean Sullivan]

The Fall have always been a band of interest to me, mostly because of the sheer magnitude of members that have been involved throughout the years. What is their recording process like? Does Mark E. Smith write the songs and the arrangement and have people come in, or does he rehearse before recording? Is he a strict ringleader or have an attitude that's more "here's some lyrics and how I want to sing it, make some music around it"

[johnleckie]

Yes! He's all those things. At time I worked with them they did rehearse. They had two drummers! Lots of songs of loose arrangements and if things weren't working in studio we'd just scrap it and move to another song. Most tracks cut live with the whole band and live vocals which Mark would change every time. Brix had a few songs and sometimes took the direction, Karl Burns was often very vocal but Craig and Steve would be quiet but simmering in the background. Between the two of them and Karl when he was on it they defined The Fall's sound at the time, with Mark taking the front of course. Later records Bend Sinister we used keyboards and cheap drum machine but still most of that cut live at Abbey Road with no multitrack. Sometimes Mark was adverse to overdubs and I quickly realised that what he wanted on the final mix was close to what he heard when he had the first playback of the backing track with his vocal. So i ended up doing away with multitrack and we cut Mr Pharmacist and two others straight to stereo and thats it done. It worked for them at the time and in context of album its cool.
Yes Mark was in control and the leader of the band.
Cheers
JL